"Portal" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... so high on this portal that we might fancy ourselves upon a tower, and the defaced stones of which it is built are immeasurably large. Instinctively each one sits with his face to the glowing sun, and consequently to the outspread distances of the fields ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... the vanishing apparitions which haunt the interlunations of life, and veiling them, or in language or in form, sends them forth among mankind, bearing sweet news of kindred joy to those with whom their sisters abide—abide, because there is no portal of expression from the caverns of the spirit which they inhabit into the universe of things. Poetry redeems from decay the visitations of the divinity ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... pathway and portal, To the life that shall die nevermore; And the cross leadeth up to the crown everlasting, The Jordan to ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... vaulted entrance led through this eastern front into the quadrangle, and was precisely opposite to the window at which Prior Anselm stood, so that he could see underneath the dark arch, and observe the light which gleamed beneath it from the eastern and open portal; but, owing to the height to which he was raised, and the depth of the vaulted archway, his eye could but indistinctly reach the opposite and extended portal. It is necessary ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... palace of the preAdamite kings, a city of the Anakim, must have appeared so shapeless, and yet so like the ruins of what had been shaped after the waters of the flood had subsided. I ascended with some toil the highest point; two large stones inclining on each other formed a rude portal on the summit. Here I sat down. A little level platform, about two yards long, lay before me, and then the eye immediately fell upon the sea, far, very far below. I never felt the sublimity of solitude before.' Names have been given to the ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... Gothic,—abuses which no Ninevite, nor Egyptian, nor Greek, nor Byzantine, nor Italian of the earlier ages would have endured for an instant, and which strike me with renewed surprise whenever I pass beneath a portal of thirteenth century Northern Gothic, associated as they are with manifestations of exquisite feeling and power in other directions. The porches of Bourges, Amiens, Notre Dame of Paris, and Notre Dame of Dijon, may be noted as conspicuous in error: small ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... contented, as my taxi bore me into old Paris. The ancient streets, had a decided lure and charm. Now we passed a quaint church, now a dim and winding alley, now a house with mansard windows or a portal of carved stone. On all sides were buildings that in the old days had been the hotels of famous gentry, this one sheltering a Montmorency, that one a Clisson or Soubise. It was just the setting for a romance by Dumas. And, with a chuckle, I felt myself in sudden sympathy ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... long-drawn evening before the coffee-houses round-about. High towards the stars towered the columns and pediments of a vast official structure, whose broken sky-line sawed the heavens, and whose varied cornices and ledges were disjointed by deep and perplexing shadows. On each side of the great portal which opened through the pillared arcade there was stationed a mounted cuirassier, and above it there ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... looking up to the tower, saw a signal made with a handkerchief from the window. Nothing doubting that it was his antagonist, he paused, expecting him. But it was Mary Avenel, who glided like a spirit from under the low and rugged portal. ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... easy gradation, but a precipitate plunge. The convulsion which ensued from the culmination of events long gathering about little Simiti had hurled her through the forest, down the scalding river, and out upon the tossing ocean with such swiftness that, as she now stood at the portal of a new world, she seemed to be wandering through the mazes of an intricate dream. During the ocean voyage she had kept aloof from the other passengers, partly because of embarrassment, partly because of the dull pain at her heart as she gazed, day after day, ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... Society of London, has made the subject of alcohol and diabetes matter for considerable study. He says a small quantity only of alcohol injected into the portal (liver) circulation of healthy animals will ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... having plumes;—the valet's boot behind, empty; and to the rear of it, down below, where one mounts to the valet's boot [BEDIENTEN-TRITT, what is now become FOOT-BOARD], stood a groom (STALLKNECHT). Thus came the King, moving slowly along; and entered through the portal of the Palace. We looked down from the window in the stairs. Prince Henri stood at the carriage-door; the pages opened it, the King stepped out, saluted his Brother, took him by the hand, walked upstairs with him, and thus the two passed near us (we retiring upstairs to ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... reconcile it with probability, that a proud mansion, a quarter of a century since, was here erected, dedicated to hospitality, where a priestess, in the person of an elegant and refined lady, shed an influence around that attracted to its portal the stranger from every country. In looking at a scene, now desolate and repulsive, he can scarcely credit the fact, that, within that period, the same place was embellished by gardens, groves, and arbors, upon which taste was exhausted, ...
— The Emigrant - or Reflections While Descending the Ohio • Frederick William Thomas
... egoism. Without being so intended some of these reports are positively humorous on account of this determination to keep "display" in the background. Here is a gem of that type. It is a report written by Corporal C. Hogg, who was stationed at North Portal on the Soo Line near the international boundary. Such localities are often a sort of "No Man's Land" where would-be desperadoes think they can set law to defiance. Corporal Hogg's report of an evening's proceeding in that region, with a foot-note by ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... seer might feel towards the ordinary masses of men. I held conversations with nature in a tongue which they could not understand. I was in daily communication with living wonders, such as they never imagined in their wildest visions. I penetrated beyond the external portal of things, and roamed through the sanctuaries. Where they beheld only a drop of rain slowly rolling down the window-glass, I saw a universe of beings animated with all the passions common to physical life, and convulsing ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... handsome; his every movement was grace; his poses magnificent. When he folded his long, dusky-ringed tail about his feet and sat him down on the veranda to gaze steadily into space for long intervals the Blythes felt that an Egyptian sphinx could not have made a more fitting Deity of the Portal. ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... as Mary tripped before the prophet the walls alone repelled. The terrace was a garden in which were lilies and sentries. For entrance there was a portal of red porphyry, above which was a balcony hemmed by a balustrade of yellow ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... perfect than clear moonlight nights. There is a terrace upon the roof of the inn at Courmayeur where one may spend hours in the silent watches, when all the world has gone to sleep beneath. The Mont Chetif and the Mont de la Saxe form a gigantic portal not unworthy of the pile that lies beyond. For Mont Blanc resembles a vast cathedral; its countless spires are scattered over a mass like that of the Duomo at Milan, rising into one tower at the end. By night the glaciers glitter in the steady moon; domes, pinnacles, and buttresses stand ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... this life as a determiner of the eternal destiny of all men. And He felt that the salvation which He wrought and offered to all was able to carry man through the single portal of death into unending bliss. Why another entrance into this world, if by passing through the world God could bring into the life the seed and power of His own grace and life which would blossom and bear fruit in the soul throughout eternity? "Marvel not," ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... Adam and Eve were driven out of the garden, poor Eve reached out and clutched at a blossom to carry away with her. In her despair she did not notice what she plucked, but, as she passed through the portal, curiosity made her open her hand to look at the flower she had snatched. To her joy it was the shamrock. But while she looked, a gust of wind caught up the diamond leaf and blew it back within the gates, just as they closed behind her. The name of that leaf was Perfect Happiness. ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... calling above the din: "Out with dem lights! Pile de bunks agin' de doahs an' winders!" They had learned to obey that voice before, in many a tight place, and now it had its old-time ring. So they went and did. A saber hilt rattled on the portal. "Open the door! This is the officer of ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... stuccoed portal, and into the central Spanish garden. He noticed that the sky was blue, with a few fleecy ...
— Subjectivity • Norman Spinrad
... explained to him, and he was given the password, "Ichthus," whispered so that all in that part of the room could hear the interdicted syllables. But he was adjured never, never to utter it, unless to the Guardian of the Portal on entering the lodge, to the Deacon Militant on the opening thereof, or to a member, when he, Stevens, should become Sovereign Pontiff. Then he was faced toward the Vice-Pontiff, and told to answer loudly and distinctly the ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... valley, I now approached the portal, within which I found a person with a brown freckled face, enveloped in a cowl of the same colour, seated motionless on a cold stone bench behind the gate. For the instant, I was the rude Gaul, surveying the mysterious senator of the forum; but without insulting ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... wide portal swung back to her touch. Her heart beating madly, she scarce knew why, her step at once eager and hesitant, she stepped by him. And he, close behind her, laughed softly at her little cry, the one moment amply repaying the man for ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... Tom obeyed promptly; and as the prince burst through the portal, half-smothered with royal wrath, the soldier fetched him a sounding box on the ear that sent him whirling to the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Charles was still upon his knees, they exchanged a few set words referring to the purpose of their meeting and their common desire for the pacification of Christendom. After this the Emperor elect rose, seated himself for a while beside the Pope, and next, at his invitation, escorted him to the great portal of the church. On the way, he inquired after Clement's health; to which the Pope replied somewhat significantly that, after leaving Rome, it had steadily improved. He tempered this allusion to his captivity, however, by adding that his eagerness to greet his Majesty had inspired ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... time, what have men done with these marvels? What have they given us in return for all this Gallic history, for all this Gothic art? The heavy flattened arches of M. de Brosse, that awkward architect of the Saint-Gervais portal. So much for art; and, as for history, we have the gossiping reminiscences of the great pillar, still ringing with the tattle of ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... the charming church of Saint-Paterne, recently pulled down by the heir of the individual who bought it of the nation. This church, one of the finest specimens of the Romanesque that France possessed, actually perished without a single drawing being made of the portal, which was in perfect preservation. The only voice raised to save this monument of a past art found no echo, either in the town itself or in the department. Though the castle of Issoudun has the appearance of an old town, with its narrow streets and its ancient ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... Curtis turned, and saw, with a feeling akin to dismay, the tall figure of his uncle standing on the threshold of the left portal, clad in a morning gown, with his eyes fixed inquiringly ...
— Adrift in New York - Tom and Florence Braving the World • Horatio Alger
... walk between the two houses, and Ethel was resolved to have the refreshment of the exercise. And how good it was to feel the pinch of the frost and the gust of the north wind, and after it to come to the happy portal of home, and the familiar atmosphere of the cheerful hall, and then to peep into the firelit room in which Ruth lay dreaming ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... gulf may be called the middle portal, for at the northern end of Newfoundland, between the great island and the coast of Labrador, another entrance exists, which is known as the Straits of Belle Isle, and is sometimes called "the shorter passage from England." Still to the south of the middle entrance is another and ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... garden, out of the small gate leading to the meadow, down the foot-path, up the mountain-road, jumping from stone to stone, courageous and intrepid as a true daughter of the Tyrol. Now she stood at the portal of the castle, in front of which some of the Bavarian soldiers were lying in idle repose on a bench, while others in the side-wing of the castle allotted to them were looking out of the windows, and dreamily humming a ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... soul is wrung; I pause, look back from the portal— Ah, I no more am young, and you, ...
— The Sisters' Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... uncertain, looking on the conflagration love had wrought. Then something of its purport seemed to frighten her, and she shrank away step by step, passing the portal of her chamber, retreating, yet facing me ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... dried her tears as the carriage pulled up at the portal of the hotel. The sigh dismissed all frivolities, all futile "whys"; the girl was now face to face with the realities of life, and the events she had so recently taken part in would soon blend ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... of God is—how much more to the purpose than pearly gates or jasper seas; how accordant with the Ormuzd in man; how premeditated in design; how indomitable in patience; and how needfully and inexorably guarded by the diminutive portal above ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... which emanated from it in every direction, in the same manner as the sun is often personified with us. The figure was engraved on a massive plate of gold of enormous dimensions, thickly powdered with emeralds and precious stones.16 It was so situated in front of the great eastern portal, that the rays of the morning sun fell directly upon it at its rising, lighting up the whole apartment with an effulgence that seemed more than natural, and which was reflected back from the golden ornaments with which the walls and ceiling were everywhere in crusted. ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... he reached the village street. A dog emerged from a field, sniffed at the crease of his trousers suspiciously and growled. At this moment Markham desired anything but commotion, so he chirped to the animal and stroke on, his head bent, his gaze on the portal of the ancien, which, as he noted, was forbiddingly closed. He paused a moment, eyeing the cur which stopped when he stopped, still regarding him uncertainly. And then summoning his courage he went to the door and knocked. This noise, which ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... these walls Are high and strong, and guarded. Treason has To penetrate through many a winding way, And massy portal; but in the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... be used by any of the family whom accident or occupation should detain beyond the usual hour of closing the gates; and both by the direction and nature of this interruption, it would seem that an applicant for admission stood at the portal. The effect on the auditors was general and instantaneous. Notwithstanding the recent dialogue, the young men involuntarily sought their arms, while the startled females huddled together like a flock of trembling and ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... nave, and the chapter-house; Under the Edwards the nave unfolded itself farther west, and the Abbot's House and Jerusalem Chamber were built. Richard II. was very fond of the Abbey, and rebuilt, at great expense, the famous north portal, often spoken of as "The Beautiful Gate," or "Solomon's Porch." By Henry V. the nave was prolonged nearly to its present length. It was just completed in time for the grand procession to sweep along it when the Te Deum was sung for the victory at Agincourt. The architect by whom the work was ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... to me now, that I knew it as the portal to so fair a scene. I had become interested in the land, in the people, and looked sorrowfully on the lake on which I must soon embark, to leave behind what I had just begun ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... 'the gables and vaults of the western facade were seriously damaged, so that the rain water was penetrating the masonry and threatening the destruction of the numerous statues and sculptured ornaments of the grand western portal.' This portal, as every traveller knows, is simply matchless in the world. The Archhishop thereupon invited four of his personal friends, all at that time members of the Ministry—MM. Dufaure, Leon Say, Wallon, and Caillaux—to Reims, to see for themselves the state of the Cathedral. ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... at the frowning portal with a sense of utter loneliness and desolation,—the quick, resistless impulse that had fired me to make the journey and which, as it were, had driven me along by its own impetus, suddenly died away into a dreary consciousness ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... West, from the North and the South, In communion and intercourse sweet, Her children have come, on this festival day, To sit, as of old, at her feet. And our mother,—God bless her benevolent face!— How her heart thrills with motherly joys, As she stands at the portal, with arms opened wide, To welcome her girls ...
— Ballads • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... pleasure of coming to my house, and allow me to offer you a cup of tea? It is visible from here—that rounded portal, do you see? with the fig tree leaning over the street. Only a hundred yards. Or perhaps we can rest awhile under this archway and converse. It is always pleasant to watch the movements of the country-folk, and there is a peculiar charm in this evening light. ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... a muss," says Granger, "all you has to do is go a couple of blocks to the east, an' then five to the no'th, an' thar on the corner you'll note a mighty prosperous s'loon. You caper in by the side door; it says FAMILY ENTRANCE over this yere portal. Sa'nter up to the bar, call for licker, drink it; an' then you remark to the barkeep, casooal like, that you're thar to maintain that any outcast who'll sell sech whiskey ain't fit to drink with a nigger or ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... Tribune Ciccronachio fed the flame with fagots; Adam Mickiewicz, the great poet of Poland, long exiled from his country, looked on; while Polish women brought little pieces that had been scattered in the street, and threw into the flames. When the double-headed eagle was pulled down from the lofty portal of the Palazzo di Venezia, the people placed there, in its stead, one of white and gold, inscribed with the name, ALTA ITALIA; and instantly the news followed, that Milan, Venice, Modena, and Parma, were driving out their tyrants. These news were received in Rome with indescribable rapture. ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... we hint; giving and receiving shots; drawing no life-blood; leaving boundless indignation. Some three times in the thickening dusk, a glimpse of them is seen, at this or the other Portal: saluted always with execrations, with the whew of lead. Let but a Bodyguard shew face, he is hunted by Rascality;—for instance, poor 'M. de Moucheton of the Scotch Company,' owner of the slain war-horse; and has ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... 138—the Equiria, or festival of Mars. Rome is astir early, and every street of the great city is thronged with citizens and strangers, slaves and soldiers, all hurrying toward the great pleasure-ground of Rome—the Circus Maximus. Through every portal the crowds press into the vast building, filling its circular seats, anxious for the spectacle. For the magistrate of the games for this day, it is said, is to be the young Marcus Annius, he who was prefect of the city during the last Latin Games; ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... forsook his allegiance to Night, and one by one the lesser hills about Mondana's knees greeted the Morning. And all the while in the plains the shapes of cities came looming out of the dusk. And Kongros stood forth with all her pinnacles, and the winged figure of Poesy carved upon the eastern portal of her gate, and the squat figure of Avarice carved facing it upon the west; and the bat began to tire of going up and down her streets, and already the owl was home. And the dark lions went up out of the plain back to their caves again. Not ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... with waxen {442} face, furtive eyes and palsied step totters to the secret recesses of its self-indulgence? It is the drunkenness of drugs, and woe be unto him that crosseth the threshold of its dream-curtained portal, for though gifted with the strength of Samson, the courage of Richard and the genius of Archimedes, he shall never return, and of him it is written that forever he ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... his sensations, Dennis was quite ready to assure himself that he had entered at the wrong portal, and, returning to the street, he discovered that the building concluded upon a rearway congested with a disorderly array ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... to the peculiar Qualities of the Eye, that fine Part of our Constitution seems as much the Receptacle and Seat of our Passions, Appetites and Inclinations as the Mind it self; and at least it is the outward Portal to introduce them to the House within, or rather the common Thorough-fare to let our Affections pass in and out. Love, Anger, Pride, and Avarice, all visibly move in those little Orbs. I know a young Lady that cant ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... to the advent of Socialism. They see in Socialism merely an intermediate stage towards their final goal. "If the millennial haven of Communism is to be reached by mankind generally, it must be through the disciplinary portal of Socialism."[1043] "Communism, the final goal of Socialism, is a form of Social Economy very closely akin to the principles set forth in the Sermon on the Mount."[1044] "Socialism and freedom 'gang ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... stud of four graze on the turfy acre fenced in about the house,—is a little restive at first in the unwonted restraint of the harness, but soon gets broken in to steady work by the heavy roads. Somewhat over an hour's slow progress brings me to the rude portal which spans the entrance of the McTureous estate. The houses of all the plantations on the Sea Side road are to be found on the eastern, or left-hand as one rides towards Hilton Head. The character of the fields ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... found himself in the portal of a magnificent shop in the windows of which were beautiful ...
— Rollo in Society - A Guide for Youth • George S. Chappell
... portal of the palace, and turning to the left, began to mount flight after flight of a staircase, which, for the loftiness of its aspiration, was worthy to be Jacob's ladder, or, at all events, the staircase of the Tower of Babel. The city bustle, which is heard even in Rome, the rumble ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... wor noa gurt shakes what might befall; Nowt but deeath, these two hearts could sever, An' that nobbut partly, net awl: For love like one's soul is immortal, If its love, it wont vanish away— Its birth wor inside o' th' breet portal Ov ...
— Yorkshire Tales. Third Series - Amusing sketches of Yorkshire Life in the Yorkshire Dialect • John Hartley
... form the intermediate portal of the vagina, as the canal which conducts to the womb was in anatomy first termed (according to Hyrtl) by De Graaf.[95] It is a secreting, erectile, more or less sensitive canal lined by what is usually considered ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... which had been excessively the mode some thirty years back; and the house still exhibited a stately and somewhat ostentatious exterior. I observed a considerable cluster of infantine ragamuffins collected round the door, and no sooner did the portal open to my summons than they pressed forward in a manner infinitely more zealous than respectful. A servant in the Austrian livery, with a broad belt round his middle, officiated as porter. "Look, look!" cried one of the youthful gazers, "look at the Beau's keeper!" This imputation on ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... ring a second time at the side-bell before any person appeared to answer my summons; and then, sad be it to relate, the portal of the mansion was opened by a dirty, down-at-heels, draggle-tailed old woman instead of the staid, respectable man-servant who should have officiated as janitor to be in proper keeping with ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Lighthouse.' For a moment, in picturesque gloom, watching the shadows cast by the Hogarthian gateway, I may be thinking of our great English painter sitting sketching the lean Frenchwomen, noting, too, the portal where the English arms used to be, when suddenly the 'Demon Lighthouse' directs his glare full on me, describes a sweep, is gone, and all is dark again. It suggests the policeman going his rounds. How the exile forced to sojourn here must detest this obtrusive beacon ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... these immemorial recesses, the natives had long been wont to bury, as we learned, their oldest objects of interest and value. There, when we pushed our way within the swinging portal, lay around us, in vast and solemn pyramids of portable property, the silent and touching monuments of human existence. The busy life of a nation lay sleeping here! Here, for example, stood that ancestral ...
— HE • Andrew Lang
... royal festal carriages, intended for the members of the French embassy. Then followed a long line of carriages, occupied by the distinguished members of the Prussian court. Slowly and solemnly this pompous procession moved through the streets, and was received at the portal of the king's palace by the royal guard. Richly-dressed pages, in advance of whom stood the grand master of ceremonies with his golden staff, conducted the French ambassador to the White saloon, where the king, in all his royal ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... and has some fine churches. That of St Etienne, formerly the cathedral, is a majestic Gothic building of the 13th to the 16th centuries. It is entered by three richly sculptured portals, over the middle and largest of which is a rose window; over the north portal rises a massive tower, but that which should surmount the south portal is unfinished. The lateral entrances are sheltered by tympana and arches profusely decorated with statuettes. The plan consists of a nave, with aisles and lateral chapels, transept and choir, with a deambulatory at a slightly ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... transition from florid Gothic to the Renaissance. The plateresque is young and modest, and seeks to please in this splendid monument by allying the innovating forms with the traditions of a school outgrown. There is an exquisite and touching reminiscence of the Gothic in the superb portal and the matchless group of the Invention of the Cross. All this fine facade is by that true and genuine artist, Enrique de Egas, the same who carved the grand Gate of the Lions, for which may the gate of paradise be open ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... buttocks, leaning heavily upon her knees and elbows. Now when she acted on this wise the youth addressed her saying, "Thou canst not do it aright." "How so?" "Because the wind passing in through the postern passeth out through thy portal, thy solution of continuity." "Then how shall I do?" "Stopper thy slit wherethrough the air passeth." "How shall I stopper it?" "An thou stopper it not thy toil will be in vain." "Dost thou know how to stopper ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... the bearers of the statue of Saint Agnes, accompanied by Monseigneur the Bishop, carrying the Holy Sacrament. For more than five centuries this route had been the same. The departure was made from the portal of Saint Agnes, then by the Rue des Orfevres to the Grand Rue, to the Rue Basse, and after having gone through the whole of the lower town, it returned by the Rue Magloire and the Place du Cloitre, to reappear again at the great front entrance of the Church. And ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... with the twin spirits of bankruptcy and indigestion. Duns rage about my portal, at least ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... train our youth? Not in the arts that are immortal, But in the greed for gains that speed From him who stands at Death's dark portal. ...
— Echoes from the Sabine Farm • Roswell Martin Field and Eugene Field
... reptile; Half lawyer, half actor, pert, dull, and inglorious, Obscure, and unheard of—but now I'm notorious: Fame has but two gates, a white and a black one; The worst they can say is, I got in at the back one: If the end be obtained 'tis equal what portal I enter, since I'm to be render'd immortal: So clysters applied to the anus, 'tis said, By skilful physicians, give ease to the head— Though my title be spurious, why should I be dastard, A man is a man though he should be a bastard. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... who drew the bolts at the portal, And into my house bade him go?" "She, the mother of the poor young maiden, Who lies in her ...
— The Fairy Changeling and Other Poems • Dora Sigerson
... already in shadow, but the sunshine still poured through the great rose window above the western portal, lighting the dim interior of the church with long shafts of brilliant reds, blues, and greens, and falling at last in a shower of broken color upon the steps of the high altar. Somewhere in the mysterious shadows an ...
— The French Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... far more regretably, not on the day of Corpus Christi, when those boys whose effigies in sculptured and painted wood we had seen in the museum at Valladolid pace in their mystic dance before the people at the opposite portal of the cathedral. But I appoint any reader, so minded, to go and witness the rite some springtime for me. There is no hurry, for it is destined to endure through the device practised in defeating the pope who proposed to abolish it. He ordained that it should continue only as long as the ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... vocation such as your brother had. You are a wife. You seek to break your ties in self-will and anger, not because the higher life calls upon you to renounce them. The higher life begins for us, my daughter, when we renounce our own will to bow before a Divine law. That seems hard to you. It is the portal of wisdom, and freedom, and blessedness. And the symbol of it hangs before you. That wisdom is the religion of the Cross. And you stand aloof from it: you are a pagan; you have been taught to say, 'I am as the wise men who lived before the time ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... the stranger to the great court of the castle, where the black charger stood pawing the earth and snorting with impatience. When they had reached the portal, whose deep archway was dimly lighted by a cresset, the stranger paused, and addressed the baron in a hollow tone of voice which the vaulted roof rendered still ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... reached, and the outmost of its untrodden streets was entered, not through towered gate or guarded rampart, but as a deep inlet between two rocks of coral in the Indian sea; when first upon the traveller's sight opened the long ranges of columned palaces,—each with its black boat moored at the portal,—each with its image cast down, beneath its feet, upon that green pavement which every breeze broke into new fantasies of rich tessellation; when first, at the extremity of the bright vista, the shadowy Rialto threw its colossal curve slowly forth from behind the palace of the Camerlenghi; ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... curls under the big cap. Elsie was still asleep in the blankets. Tess picked her up and went out into the hall and down the stairs. When the dwarf opened the outside door, the stinging gale slashed at the open portal. ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... or hearkening to my companion's animadversions upon rogues, criminals, and crime in general until, as the afternoon waned, we descended the steep hill into Wrotham village and pulled up at the "Bull" Inn, into whose hospitable portal Mr. Shrig vanished, to pursue those enquiries he had repeated at every ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... we passed its portal grand, Our hearts were glad, our spirits light, And we rejoiced, and eager scanned The scenes that came before our sight. Near Alcatraz, an island bold, We paused to hear ...
— Within the Golden Gate - A Souvenir of San Fransisco Bay • Laura Young Pinney
... last, and, as if overcome by fate, began to totter silently back toward her stuffy little inferno of a cottage. It had no lofty portal, no terrific inscription of forfeited hopes—she did not understand wherein ...
— To-morrow • Joseph Conrad
... was enacted on the open lawn of the forest, the dismounted company in the cavern having completed their fruitless search for the fugitives, emerged from its portal with all the mules and baggage, just in time to see and hear the fiery explosions of the rifles and their effect upon the whole body of scarlet cavalry. The entire scene, including the mounted possession ...
— Memoir of an Eventful Expedition in Central America • Pedro Velasquez
... o'clock, when it was filled with fog, and candles shed murky and blurred rays through the windows of all its then-occupied sets of chambers; notably from a set of chambers in a corner house in the little inner quadrangle, presenting in black and white over its ugly portal ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... Jenny will not speed so swiftly from the earth she loved but that you shall overtake her. Who knows but she is fluttering still at the gate of death, putting off the heavenward journey hour after hour, in hope that the face she waits for will at last light up the dark portal— ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... Christ, hear Thou thy people's cry, Star of the deep and portal of the sky, Mother of Him who Thee from nothing made, Sinking we strive and call to Thee for aid. Oh, by that joy which Gabriel brought to Thee, Thou Virgin first and last, let ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... understand it.—"Gloved left hand he applied a gentle friction to the portal of his right eye, which unclosing at the silent summons, enabled him to perceive a repeater studded with brilliants, and ascertain the exact minute of time, which we have already made known to the reader, and ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... said shrewdly, is not a useful portal of discovery, one should imagine. What useful discovery did ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... a god of old story Come down from the home of his rest; He must smile—like the sun in his glory, On the buds he loves ever the best; And oh! from its ivory portal Like music his soft speech must flow! If he speak, smile, or walk like a mortal, My own ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... the sad, sad finale. From the portal of a house, as cheerless and dreary as can be imagined, in the month of January, with a black silk petticoat stretched on a white curtain thrown over her coffin for a pall, and an half-day Irish dragoon to act as chaplain over the grave, which was in a timber-yard, were ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... regions, World-eternal, Onward, onward, is my face; Resting spot in vain I wish for, Till in thee I find my place: Death's dark portal, Though so dark I ...
— Favourite Welsh Hymns - Translated into English • Joseph Morris
... inception, creation, starting point &c. 293; dawn &c. (morning) 125; evolution. title-page; head, heading; van &c. (front) 234; caption, fatihah[obs3]. entrance, entry; inlet, orifice, mouth, chops, lips, porch, portal, portico, propylon[obs3], door; gate, gateway; postern, wicket, threshold, vestibule; propylaeum[obs3]; skirts, border &c. (edge) 231. first stage, first blush, first glance, first impression, first sight. rudiments, elements, outlines, grammar, alphabet, ABCE. V. begin, start, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... the heart against its sneers, its cold derision, Locks all its better feelings, making it a gloomy prison; But your hand, my angel, shall unlock its rocky, dust-strewn portal, Your smile shall rouse its dying dreams of ...
— Poems • Marietta Holley
... through the portal, Where soon my lover will enter, Comes the pure strain of a flute ...
— Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics • Bliss Carman
... for you hold immortal What has been born a day or two! "But it was destined?" Ay, your portal Only has God to heed—and you! He with his thrice three million thirsting Worlds in the throes of death and life Surely has time to spare for choosing ...
— Many Gods • Cale Young Rice
... which I have spoken herein. Towards the evening a serene drowsiness fell upon him, like the snow that falleth in silence, and froze all his temporal faculties in so gentle a manner, that it could not be said he knew what it was to die; being, as it were, carried in the downy arms of sleep to the portal door of Death, where all the pains and terrors that guard the same were hushed, and stood mute around, as ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... carved and gilded. A ragged squad of Turkish soldiers lolled about the gate now; a couple of boys on a donkey; a grinning slave on a mule; a pair of women flapping along in yellow papooshes; a basket-maker sitting under an antique carved portal, and chanting or howling as he plaited his osiers: a peaceful well of water, at which knights' chargers had drunk, and at which the double-boyed donkey was now refreshing himself—would have made a pretty picture for a sentimental artist. As he sits, and endeavours to make a sketch of this ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... plied— Still bid Thy good gifts from Thy treasury flow; All good is assembled where Thou dost abide; To Thee, save my poverty, nought can I show, And of Thee all my poverty's wants are supplied; What choice have I save to Thy portal to go? If 'tis shut, to what other my steps can I guide? 'Fore whom as a suppliant low shall I bow, If Thy bounty to me, Thy poor slave, is denied? But oh: though rebellious full often I grow Thy bounty and kindness ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... consistency with right Reason, I consider as the outer court of the temple—the common area, within which it stands. 2. The miracles, with and through which the Religion was first revealed and attested, I regard as the steps, the vestibule, and the portal of the temple. 3. The sense, the inward feeling, in the soul of each believer of its exceeding desirableness—the experience, that he needs something, joined with the strong foretokening, that the redemption and the graces propounded to us in Christ are what ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... mounds left by the ruins of ancient palaces. It stands in a large garden, inclosed by a lofty wall of red sandstone, with arched galleries around the interior, and entered by a superb gateway of sandstone, inlaid with ornaments and inscriptions from the Koran in white marble. Outside this grand portal, however, is a spacious quadrangle of solid masonry, with an elegant structure, intended as a caravanserai, on the opposite side. Whatever may be the visitor's impatience, he cannot help pausing to notice the fine proportions of these ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... the bottom of the first six-hundred-foot descent it made a mighty shower of mist like escaping steam from a giant rift in some titanic boiler, and soon reached the floor of the valley. The road from El Portal comes up on the north side of the river. We passed El Capitan, which rears its massive head three thousand three hundred feet in the distance, perpendicularly above the river. We were shown the pine tree, one hundred and fifty feet high, growing out of a rift in ...
— Out of Doors—California and Oregon • J. A. Graves
... former preached a classical sermon, exhorting the survivors not to give way to grief and informing them in the most respectful terms that they also would be one day called upon to pass that gloomy and mysterious portal which had just closed upon the remains of their lamented brother. Then the tenantry mounted on horseback again, or stayed and refreshed themselves at the Crawley Arms. Then, after a lunch in the servants' hall at Queen's Crawley, ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... been preserved in traditionary history, when so much had been forgotten,—when even the features and architectural characteristics of the mansion in which it was merely a piece of furniture had been forgotten. And, as he gazed at it, he half thought himself an actor in a fairy portal [tale?]; and would not have been surprised—at least, he would have taken it with the composure of a dream—if the mimic portal had unclosed, and a form of pigmy majesty had appeared within, beckoning him to enter and find the revelation ...
— The Ancestral Footstep (fragment) - Outlines of an English Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... ruins within the precincts of the Castle of Dover presents features of early work approximating Roman, as a portal and window-arches formed of brickwork, which seem to have been copied from those in the Roman tower near adjoining; the walls also have much of Roman brick worked up into them, but have no such regular ...
— The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, Elucidated by Question and Answer, 4th ed. • Matthew Holbeche Bloxam
... best may greet My lord, the majesty of Argos, home. What day beams fairer on a woman's eyes Than this, whereon she flings the portal wide, To hail her lord, heaven-shielded, home from war? This to my husband, that he tarry not, But turn the city's longing into joy! Yea let him come, and coming may he find A wife no other than he left ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus
... embattled portal arch he pass'd, Whose ponderous grate and massy bar Had oft roll'd ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... each by separate doors; Baba led Juan onward, room by room, Through glittering galleries, and o'er marble floors, Till a gigantic portal through the gloom, Haughty and huge, along the distance lowers; And wafted far arose a rich perfume: It seemed as though they came upon a shrine, For all was vast, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... billiard room. The lower halls were deserted, and she had little difficulty in making her way unseen to the door that led to the basement. Here she paused irresolutely, the recollection of the dismal, grasping solitude that dwelt beyond the portal sending again ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... The half-forgotten years of glory, That slumber on their dusty biers, In the dim crypts of ancient story, Awake with all their shadowy files, Shape, spirit, name in death immortal, The phantoms glide along the aisles, And ghosts steal in at every portal." ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, January 1886 - Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, January, 1886 • Various
... there yawned, dark and mysterious, a mighty cavern, so black and high that it might well suggest a portal leading to the regions below, where Vulcan is supposed to stir those tremendous fires which have moulded much of the configuration of the world, and which are ever seething—an awful Inferno—under the thin crust of the globe on ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... inspection, however, failed to disclose any signs of the great portal, or its heavy padlock having been tampered with. Nor were there any marks tending to show where an effort had been made to force boards off the frame in which the ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... At the portal of the palace the pope was received by his master of ceremonies, who accompanied him to his cabinet. One glance at his pale countenance had revealed to him the inutility of the condescension of the supreme pontiff, ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... blood-current to distant organs, where they are arrested in the capillaries and give rise to secondary growths. These are most frequently situated in the lungs, except when the primary growth lies within the territory of the portal circulation, in which case they occur in the liver. The secondary growths closely resemble the parent tumour. Sarcoma may invade an adjacent vein on such a scale that if the invading portion becomes detached it may constitute a dangerous embolus. This may be observed in sarcoma of the kidney, ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... of the best models known to him—and, undoubtedly he knew the best. His works cover and line the Louvre, and anyone who visits Paris may get a perfect conception of his genius—certainly anyone who in addition visits Rouen and beholds the lovely tracery of his earliest sculpture on the portal of St. Maclou. He was eminently the sculptor of an educated class, and appealed to a cultivated appreciation. Coming as he did at the acme of the French Renaissance, when France was borrowing with intelligent selection whatever it considered valuable ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... "society" at all,—serene and self-contained old residents, who held themselves above the newly-rich who were beginning to crowd "the avenues" and force their way with a golden wedge,—and many who lived in splendid houses on the avenue had never been admitted within that dignified portal. They now began to drop in, elegantly dressed women and handsomely appointed girls. Mrs. Wentworth received them all with that graciousness that was her native manner. Miss Brooke, having secured her "new cap," was seated at her side, her faded face tinged with rising color, her ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... the dark cavernous portal in the face of the Golden Cliffs, through which the river poured. On into the Stygian darkness beyond he ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... be optimistic in pleasure, But when Pain stands us up by her portal to measure The actual height of our trust and belief, Ah! then is the time when our faith comes to grief. The woes of our fellows, God sends them, 'tis plain; But the devil himself is the cause of our pain. We question the wisdom that rules o'er the world, And our minds into chaos ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... cypresses, that fact—very modern in its spirit—the San Tome mine had already thrown its subtle influence. It had altered, too, the outward character of the crowds on feast days on the plaza before the open portal of the cathedral, by the number of white ponchos with a green stripe affected as holiday wear by the San Tome miners. They had also adopted white hats with green cord and braid—articles of good quality, which could be obtained in the ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... it set him dreaming of drifting bloom and flower-strewn ways of woodlands. A happy world, whatever the mental state of its inhabitants! A world which was doing its bravest best to play the game by mankind! A world which was whispering at every portal of the senses that the business of living was immensely worth while! A world which——! He had reached this point, when the mention of Adair brought him back to the cause of his philosophizing—the inscrutable tenderness of the girl, half sorceress, half penitent, seated ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... at another, yawning, as a flood-gate, to precipitate the Cyprians of St. Giles's into the embraces of Macheath? To elude this glaring absurdity, to give to each respective mansion the door which the carpenter would doubtless have given, we vary our portal with the varying scene, passing from deal to mahogany, and from mahogany to oak, as the opposite claims of cottage, palace, or castle ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... a gravelled driveway with a stone portal. The iron gates were thrown wide, and at his entrance Ford stood aside to let an outgoing auto-car have the right of way. Being full of his errand, and of the abstraction of a depressed soul, Ford merely remarked that there were two ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... threshold, budding in spikes and corkscrew points, and bearing, one on either side, two ominous extinguishers, that seemed to say, 'Who enter here, leave light behind!' There were no talismanic characters engraven on the portal, but the house was now so neglected in appearance, that boys chalked the railings and the pavement—particularly round the corner where the side wall was—and drew ghosts on the stable door; and being ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... bees hummed more drowsily. I sat quite still in the sun. And then presently, moved by some prompting instinct, I turned my head, and, far off, through the narrow portal of the temple, I saw the girl-child swathed in purple still lying, sinuously as a young snake, upon the palm-wood roof above the brown earth wall to watch me with her eyes of ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... descended into the courtyard, and found a trooper holding a saddled horse, on which he mounted, and sallied from the portal of Doune Castle, attended by about a score of armed men on horseback. These had less the appearance of regular soldiers than of individuals who had suddenly assumed arms from some pressing motive of unexpected emergency. Their uniform, which was blue ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... Dick and Tom had gained the lower hallway of the dormitory. The door was fastened, but the key was in the lock and they soon had the portal open and they leaped outside. Then both started in the direction of the ...
— The Rover Boys in the Air - From College Campus to the Clouds • Edward Stratemeyer
... into the side street toward the Export Club. Rusty—fresh from Kentucky psychology—doffed his cap and disappeared as Warren entered the Grecian portal. ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... which Time bad spared to him, but which, however, it might have offended a classic taste, presented altogether a magnificent appearance. Half-a-dozen guards, whose shields and helmets somewhat oddly contrasted with the two pieces of cannon, one of which was ostentatiously placed on each side of the portal, and which had been presented to the Prince of Athens by the Republic of Venice, lounged before the entrance, and paid their military homage to the stranger as he passed them. He passed them and entered a large quadrangular garden, surrounded by arcades, supported by a considerable ...
— The Rise of Iskander • Benjamin Disraeli
... he looked along the grass And saw before his portal pass A knight that wailed aloud, "Alas That life should find this dolorous pass And find no shield from doom and dole!" And hearing all his moan, "Abide, Fair sir," the king arose and cried, "And say what sorrow bids you ride ...
— The Tale of Balen • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... cap and overcoat and locked the grille door and the bank door after he had passed each portal. His last chore of the day was always a trip into the basement to make sure that the dying fire in the wood furnace was carefully closed in ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... in the streets, telling my beads, and praying to myself, according to my usual custom, I heard a foul out-cry before Gomez' portal; and his wife, my penitent, making doleful lamentations: thereupon, making what haste my limbs would suffer me, that are crippled with often kneeling, I saw him spurning and listing her most unmercifully; whereupon, using Christian ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... the ascent Is long and steep and toilsome; here awhile Thou mayest repose thee, from the noontide heat O'ercanopied by this arch'd rock that strikes A grateful coolness: clasping its rough arms Round the rude portal, the old ivy hangs Its dark green branches down, and the wild Bees, O'er its grey blossoms murmuring ceaseless, make Most pleasant melody. No common spot Receives thee, for the Power who prompts the song, Loves this secluded haunt. The tide below ...
— Poems • Robert Southey
... is in Royal street. Within a deep, white portal, the walls and ceiling of which are covered with ornamentations, two or three steps, shut off from the sidewalk by a pair of great gates of open, ornamental iron-work with gilded tops, rise to the white door. ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... from under a sculptured portal the figure of a young girl, arrayed with as much richness of taste as the most splendid of the flowers, beautiful as the day, and with a bloom so deep and vivid that one shade more would have been too much. She ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... look how it steals away! My father, in his habit as he liv'd! Look, where he goes, even now out at the portal! ...
— Hamlet, Prince of Denmark • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... obeyed with tottering steps, and, reaching the massive portal, undid the guichet, or lattice, and asked ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... twelve apostles, that decorate the grand portal, and entered the cathedral. The interior is as fine as the exterior. The columns are massive, the ceiling groined; the style is the decorated or geometric architecture, that prevailed in Europe in the thirteenth century. The cardinal's gothic throne is on the right. The ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... new, as is heaven's portal; The son of heaven and earth is new, And misses not, since become immortal, The narrow homestead, whence he withdrew. It ceased existing, It ceased attracting— But faith persisting, But virtue acting! You have, before you, the lot prepared, By abject spirits not ...
— The Angel of Death • Johan Olof Wallin
... rashly given has bound Your lips the truth to screen, The nameless something gathers fast As mist the hills between; You wrap you in your cloak of pride, The words are never spoken That might have thrown the portal wide, And friendship's ...
— Debris - Selections from Poems • Madge Morris
... then, which we must see first. Nature's artistic contrivance is apparent even in the entrance. The train-ride from the main line at Merced is a constant up-valley progress, from a hot, treeless plain to the heart of the great, cool forest. Expectation keeps pace. Changing to automobile at El Portal, one quickly enters the park. A few miles of forest and behold—the Gates of the Valley. El Capitan, huge, glistening, rises upon the left, 3,000 feet above the valley floor. At first sight its bulk almost appalls. Opposite upon the right Cathedral Rocks support the ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... head of the Tauernthal. Midway between them lies a little chapel, cut into the solid rock for shelter from the avalanches. This lofty vale is indeed rightly named; for it is shut off from the rest of the world. The portal is a cliff down which the stream rushes in foam and thunder. On either hand rises a mountain wall. Within, the pasture is fresh and green, sprinkled with Alpine roses, and the pale river flows swiftly down between the rows of dark wooden houses. At the head of the vale towers the Gross-Venediger, ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... churches on the site of which it was erected. Its Early English and Decorated Gothic came off lightly from three restorations, but the tower is nineteenth-century vandalism. The Norman west front enshrines in the riches of its sculptured portal, with its five receding arches, figures of the Saviour and his twelve apostles, and on two shafts are carved likenesses of Henry I and his Queen. Freeman has pronounced it to be far the finest example of Norman architecture of its kind. The Chapter House door, a magnificent example of Decorated ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... rifle. Tho others follewed as well as they might while beating off a discouraged enemy. The remarkable innkeeper had barred his windows with strong wood shutters. He held the door by the crack for them, and they stumbled one by on through the portal. Coleman did not know why they were not all dead, nor did he understand the intrepid and generous behaviour of the innkeeper, but at any rate he felt that the fighting was suspended, and he wanted to see ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... rivers of the world the Hudson is acknowledged queen, decked with romance, jewelled with poetry, clad with history, and crowned with beauty. More than this, the Hudson is a noble threshold to a great continent and New York Bay a fitting portal. The traveler who enters the Narrows for the first time is impressed with wonder, and the charm abides even with those who pass daily to and fro amid her beauties. No other river approaches the Hudson in varied grandeur and sublimity, and no other city has so grand and commodious ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... a mossy wood, With golden cross uplifted, the small white chapel stood, But in that solemn hour, the light of moon and star Upon its portal shining, ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... was on them of disturbing the secrets of the long dead Vikings. Before them was the cabin door which they longed to open but somehow none of them seemed to have the courage to do so. The portal was of massive oak but had been sprung by the explosion till it hung on its hinges weakly. One good push would ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... Portal knocks And charms the squamiest Serpent in her Locks - I wear tobacchanalian Wreaths of Smoke And there are more Perfectos ...
— The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Jr. (The Rubiyt of Omar Khayym Jr.) • Wallace Irwin
... saints, that wafted outward blessing-freighted broke Around him standing at the gate alone. All down the radiant slope of golden stairs, By which he climbed so late from earth to heaven, It rolled impalpable—a fragrant cloud; And still, turned from the Alleluias loud, Beyond the portal-guarding angels seven, He listened earthward, for a voice—a sound Out of the dark that spread ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... little Duke of Normandy closely to her heart, and quite forgot that she was all this while in the carriage; that near the open portal the hostlers and lackeys were awaiting in a respectful posture the dismounting of the queen; that the drums were all the while beating, and that the guards were standing before the gates in the fixed ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... restrained, A prisoner sits, engirt by secret doors And waving tapestries that argue forth Strange passages into the outer air; So in this dimmer room which we call life, Thus sits the soul and marks with eye intent That mystic curtain o'er the portal death; Still deeming that behind the arras lies The lambent way that leads to lasting light. Poor fooled and foolish soul! Know now that death Is but a blind, false door that nowhere leads, And gives no hope ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... the old King, with the brothers of Ethelried (the three that were dark and the three that were fair), came riding up to the portal. They thought to share in Ethelried's fame and splendor. But the scissors leaped from their place and snapped so angrily in their faces that they turned ...
— The Gate of the Giant Scissors • Annie Fellows Johnston |
